from Comfort & Joy: Readings and Practices for Advent (Herald Press, 2024)
Our embodied existence includes times of great joy and times of suffering—both can even be wrapped into one experience. Sometimes my middle schooler will exclaim, “I am so sore!” after a particularly taxing game of soccer or a demanding physical education class. When I comment that perhaps he could slow down his movements and lessen the hurt afterward, he disagrees. He experiences such joy when exercising his physical body that to decrease his efforts seems impossible.
Embodied living is a beautiful gift from God. Learning to listen thoughtfully to the messages from our God-created human form can increase our awareness of our whole being. And listening to our spirit and acknowledging our humanity can draw us closer to God.
The wonderful, holy event of God coming among us is the story and the promise retold each year during the Christmas season. God created us in
human form. Christ came as Emmanuel, God with us. Our bodies are holy and cracked vessels that are able to carry out God’s kingdom work in the world; the shepherds most likely had their faults, yet they are some of the first humans to respond to Christ’s birth by “glorifying and praising God” (Luke 2:20). They physically ran toward God and visited the Christ child.
As we turn our bodies toward the new year, may we reflect on the holiness of embodied life and listen to the messages our bodies send us. May we thank God that our bodies allow us physical expression of a spiritual existence. May we consider the gift it is that the advent of Christ happened in a body. And may we thank God again that each of us has been given the gift of a finite, beautiful, holy, created body.
We hope this brings you some comfort and joy! You can spread the joy by liking, commenting and sharing this post with others.
Some Comfort and Joy was developed as a devotional resource that follows the rhythms and seasons of the liturgical year from an Anabaptist-Mennonite perspective.
some comfort and joy 